Literary Fiction
Date Published: April 16th
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Evermore Township, 1868
The Ruin of His Peace
The sun is dropping slowly
over the valley’s western rim. Hartford Sloan has been sitting on a bench under
a tree near the shed that is the Evermore Trading Company for nearly five
hours. He sits with his arms at rest on the hard bones of his thighs, watching
an occasional wagon come and go. A goat stands in the seeping shade, munching
grass, lifting its head to stare at him with an accusing bleat before bending
down to tear another grassy clump free with its yellowed teeth.
In his hands, Hartford
holds a pack of letters, the most recent one received some weeks past, the
paper creased and worn from the folding and unfolding of so many moments. He
reads the lines again and again, words in a delicate script, her imagined voice
lyrical and soft inside his head . . .
Dear Mr. Sloan,
I have received your
generous advance, and I am in much anticipation of our meeting and our pending
union. As agreed, I have purchased passage, and my coach is scheduled to arrive
in Evermore on the 26th of April, midday, so I am told. It is a long journey,
and there may be delay, but I am so eager to begin this new chapter in my life.
While I understand that this is, for both of us, a transaction of some
practicality, please know that I am grateful for this opportunity of pending
matrimony, and I am certain there will be no regrets.
I shall see you very soon,
dear Hartford.
Yours,
Miss Bethany Hale
Hartford retrieves his
pocket watch. It’s getting late. The air is beginning to cool, and the sun is
hovering over the ridge. A dog barks somewhere in town, and at last, he thinks
he can see the dust clouding the road on the distant rise, maybe two miles out.
He stands and returns the letters to his pocket. He smooths his hair and tucks
his shirt, and he sees his fingers trembling. The thought of his father
intrudes, the man belittling him. Straighten yourself,
boy. Look at you. You’re weak and pathetic. You wouldn’t fetch half the price
of a good strong neg—
“You’re wearing my bench
out, Sloan.” A man calls from the open door of the Trading Post. “You sure
she’s coming? Maybe ya got the day wrong.”
Hartford shakes himself.
“You can mind your own goddamned business, Gamble. It’s the right day, and
she’ll be here before that goddamned sun falls.”
“All right, then, Mr.
Sloan. Didn’t mean no disrespect. But you know as well as I just how unreliable
that stage can be.”
“She’ll be here, goddammit.
She’ll be here.”
Hartford takes a breath and
looks toward the road. Something there in the distance. He squints to see, a
few hundred yards out, a coach. Burnt-red paint and sunbaked leather. He
straightens his shirt, sets his bow tie at his neck, and stands stiffly.
At fifty yards, he has the
sudden urge to turn and leave. When she sees him, she will change her mind.
When she sees him, she will know how worthless he is. She will soon know he is
the son of a bastard slave trader named Mosley Sloan, who, given the chance,
wouldn’t spend a handful of change to purchase his own worthless son.
The coach comes to a ragged
halt in a cloud of dust, the horses panting, coated in sweat and dirt. The
driver is down and at the latch of the carriage, reaching in. A laced boot at
the threshold, a gloved hand on the coachman’s palm, a woman steps onto the
rutted shoulder, the dust still settling around her, clouding the sheen of her
ruffled skirt.
Bethany is upright, her
hair braided and wrapped into a fine bun, kind eyes in a face that is plain and
soft, her skin the color of a ripened peach. Hartford stands before her,
trembling invisibly. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
She smiles and steps toward
him, and she extends her hand. “Mr. Sloan. Hartford. I am so very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He is dumbstruck and suddenly quite stupid, and the goat chides him with another stuttered bleat. “Uh, yes, yes, Miss . . . Bethany.” He takes her hand and holds it too tight. She looks at him with nothing less than kindness, and he feels a sudden and unexpected surrender. This woman will take care of him. He knows that this is true. He still has her hand. He is afraid to let go.
Nicholas Deitch is a writer, architect, and advocate for social justice whose fiction explores the intersection of cities, history, and human resilience. His passion for storytelling began when a colleague recognized the emotional depth of his nonfiction work. Since then, he has honed his craft, publishing short stories in Litro Magazine, Club Plum, and Santa Barbara Literary Journal. His short story “Grace Eternal” won Best Fiction at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (2019).
Death and Life in the City of Dreams, his debut novel, is deeply influenced by his experiences in nonprofit leadership and the design of inclusive communities and urban places.
Originally from Los Angeles, he now lives in Ventura, California, with his wife and creative partner Diana.
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